Stop the genocide in Gaza!

An Open letter to the Swiss Federal Council

3 January 2025

Dear Federal Councillors.

On the last day of 2024, the “Neue Zürcher Zeitung” published an article on the Gaza war on its front page entitled “Last hospital must cease operations”. In it, the Rewert Hoffer reports on conditions in the northern Gaza Strip that would make any sane person shudder and shake them to the core. It is reported that the Israeli army has ordered the evacuation of the Kamal Adwan Hospital. This means that there is no longer a functioning hospital in North Gaza. The hospital was the last port of call for the wounded and sick.
 n According to Hoffert, the “living conditions are becoming more unbearable every day”. According to the Israeli army, the hospital was a “Hamas stronghold”, although just under a year ago it claimed to have “liberated” the entire north of Gaza from Hamas. Five hospital staff were also killed in the fighting in and around the hospital.
  Israel became embroiled in a gruelling war. The enemy, which operates in a decentralised and flexible manner using a tunnel system, can never be defeated. And this despite the fact that the Israeli government has had all the leading members of Hamas massacred. Israel has still not grasped the nature of this war or the internal structure of Hamas. The brute force on both sides continues unabated and is taking on ever worse proportions. The human rights covenants and all international conventions and international humanitarian law are being completely ignored. The situation has long been precarious. How much longer do we want to stand by and watch?
  The people in the Gaza Strip are the ones who are suffering. Hardly any aid supplies or medical care are being delivered there. 90 per cent of Gaza’s 2.2 million inhabitants have been displaced during the war and are now living in tents. Satellite images show in an alarming way that almost the entire Gaza Strip has been completely destroyed, agriculture is in ruins, and nothing can be grown. Even in the so-called humanitarian zone in the south of the coastal strip, there are repeated attacks – and now winter cold is adding to the problem. In the past week alone, six small children have died of hypothermia.
  The “Neue Zürcher Zeitung” reports:

At the moment, temperatures in the Gaza Strip regularly drop to below ten degrees at night, and there are strong winds and rain. Hundreds of thousands have to endure these miserable conditions in makeshift tents. According to the UN, at least one million people have to spend the winter without adequate shelter.

And further:

According to the World Food Programme, since the beginning of the major Israeli offensive in the northern Gaza Strip on 6 October [2024], only 3 of 101 requested aid deliveries to the area were approved by the end of December. The city of Beit Hanun was therefore completely cut off from aid deliveries for 75 days.

Why is Israel stopping this aid?
  For us, this is further clear evidence that a large-scale genocide is being planned and is now being carried out. The intended genocide is confirmed by official statements from members of the Israeli government. “Doctors Without Borders” emphasise: “The attack on the Kamal Adwan clinic resembles a pattern of repeated attacks by Israeli troops on health infrastructure.” And always with the excuse that they are pursuing and fighting terrorists.
  In Gaza, a second Vietnam is unfolding before our eyes, a war without fronts. After the Vietnam War, analysed sources revealed that the My Lai massacre was not an isolated incident, but that the US army, led by the highest military and political authorities, was committing systematic genocide against the Vietnamese population, as the Israeli army is now doing in Gaza.
  Frozen to death infants, the starvation of civilians, the targeted destruction of houses, fields, and infrastructure, and the deliberate prevention of humanitarian aid. How much longer must this genocide continue before Switzerland finally raises its official voice and is shaken out of its diplomatic lethargy?
  We must not enter the new year like this and remain silent about such atrocities. The Swiss parliament’s ban on Hamas is one thing, but when will it be followed by a clear condemnation of Israel and the arms-supplying USA? Switzerland must act! As the depositary state of the Geneva Conventions, it has a compelling mandate to intervene with the ICRC as a humanitarian institution. As Federal Councillors, it is time you openly criticise the Israeli government, even if it immediately swings the anti-Semitism cudgel and tries to squash any reasonable discussion.
  The hostages will be returned alive only if serious negotiations finally take place. A self-confident demand by Switzerland within the framework of the UN, to immediately stop all US arms deliveries to Israel and finally allow the necessary comprehensive humanitarian aid for the civilian population, would enable Switzerland to regain its battered reputation in the eyes of the world.
  We urge you as Federal Councillors to make an unequivocal commitment to peace. Have the courage to stand up and raise the voice of reason and humanity clearly and unambiguously, even if this means swimming against the tide of the powerful. Take Ireland or South Africa as an example and become a role model yourself. Switzerland must not choose “one side”, but as a credibly neutral country in the face of the madness of war, it must stand up for a ceasefire and peace, now!

Elfy and René Roca,
 Oberrohrdorf-Staretschwi, Switzerland

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